CV NEWS FEED // “Adult” industry giant Pornhub in the new year will block its website in Florida after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an age-verification law in March protecting children from accessing pornographic material.
Pornhub’s slated exit from the Florida market follows a growing trend across several states that have enacted similar legislation: when a state passes an age-verification law, the website stops providing pornography there.
Axios reported on Wednesday that users who logged on to the pornography site from the Sunshine State this week received a popup informing them that they will “lose access to Pornhub” on New Year’s Day.
Pornhub’s message to Floridians continued: “Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB? As Crazy as it sounds, it’s true.”
>> MARCH: DeSANTIS SIGNS COMPREHENSIVE LAW PROTECTING KIDS ONLINE <<
In its popup, Pornhub purported that the company does not “want minors accessing our site and think preventing that from happening is a good thing.” However, it claimed that age-verification laws that seek to do just that “won’t achieve” it and instead amount to “putting everybody’s privacy at risk.”
Anti-human trafficking advocate and noted Pornhub opponent Laila Mickelwait took issue with the company’s claim that their opposition to Florida’s new law was motivated by concerns for users’ “privacy.”
“I just want to point out how ridiculous that is coming from them,” Mickelwait said during a recent appearance on the PBD Podcast. “For one, they exploit and they harvest the data of every single user that visits their site.”
She noted that Pornhub is currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit regarding its alleged exploitation of user data.
Mickelwait wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday: “This is about one thing: MONEY.”
This past March, DeSantis signed HB3, a comprehensive social media safety law that includes a provision requiring Florida users to prove that they are over the age of 18 before they can access online pornography.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the law, which is taking effect on January 1, will also “Prohibit any child under 14 years of age from creating an account on a social media platform” and “Require parental permission for social media accounts for minors 14 or 15 years of age.”
CatholicVote President Brian Burch noted that Pornhub’s decision to cease operations in Florida is evidence that “age-verification laws work.”
“We urge every state legislature in the country to take immediate action to protect children from accessing obscene and dangerous pornography,” Burch added. “We require age verification to smoke, to gamble, and to drink alcohol. Surely we can protect our kids from this monstrous industry.”
>> POLL: 80% OF VOTERS SUPPORT AGE-VERIFICATION LAWS <<
In the summer, Pornhub announced that it was shutting down its site in Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska – all states that had recently passed bipartisan age-verification laws.
A June CatholicVote report indicated Pornhub “had previously blocked access to its site in several other states” that passed such laws, including “Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Texas.”
Throughout the past few years, polling has consistently shown that these laws protecting children from inappropriate content on the internet are among the most popular policy initiatives in the modern political landscape.
An RMG Research poll conducted in August 2023 found that 83% of a sample of American voters said they favored a hypothetical federal law requiring age verification to access online pornography.
“By contrast, only a combined 14% were opposed to a national age verification law,” CatholicVote added at the time.
Age-verification laws have also garnered significant support among elected Democrats at the state level – putting the measures in a unique position relative to other social policies.
>> AUGUST 2023: LAWS CAUSE PORNHUB TO FLEE MULTIPLE STATES <<
CatholicVote reported last year that Virginia’s 2023 age-verification law was supported by all Republican state senators and all but three Democratic state senators.
In Arkansas and Utah, all legislators – Republican and Democratic – voted for the states’ respective age-verification laws.
Again from CatholicVote’s August 2023 report:
The near-universal popularity of age-verification laws caused Politico to dub them “perhaps the most bipartisan policy in the country.”
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In mid-2022, Louisiana became the first state in the country to enact such a law. HB 142 passed 36-0 in the state Senate and 96-1 in the state House. The bipartisan bill, which had co-sponsors from both parties, was signed into law by Gov. John Bel Edwards, D-LA.
